The Doctor and Leela arrive in a Devon village on the trail of a disturbance that could lead to the end of the universe…
On recommendation, I listened to this “lost story” before tackling Destination: Nerva, the first of the original stories created by Big Finish for their inaugural Fourth Doctor season, and it certainly makes for a spectacular opening to the Big Finish/Tom Baker relationship.
On occasion I’ve criticised the AudioGo adventures for playing too much to Tom Baker the character – the person who we first saw in Dimensions in Time who calls everyone “my dear” and could patronise for Gallifrey – rather than getting a performance from Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor we remember. Whether it’s John Dorney’s assured scripting from Robert Banks Stewart’s original outline, or Ken Bentley’s direction is hard to tell, but this is undoubtedly the Fourth Doctor in action, alongside a very well characterised Leela.
The similarities between this and the story that replaced it, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, are really vague: time travel from the future and a mutation caused by problems with the journey are about it, so you shouldn’t think that this is going to be a Sliding Doors version of the Robert Holmes tale.
Verdict: With strong performances from guest stars including Sherlock‘s Louise Brealey and Raiders of the Lost Ark‘s Paul Freeman, this is very much in the mould of the Season 14 tales that it would have brought to a conclusion, and a cracking tale that bodes extremely well for the T.Baker/Big Finish collaboration 8/10
Paul Simpson
Foe from the Future is part of the The Lost Stories – The Fourth Doctor Box Set. Click here to order that from Big Finish
Click here for our review of the other story in the Box Set, The Valley of Death.
IF YOU HAVE COME HERE PLEASE REDIRECT YOUR BROWSER TO WWW.SCIFIBULLETIN.COM 
Good to hear that this Foe is not a cause for woe (aythangyew!) and that Tom gives an appropriately Doctorish turn. Cheering news.